Designing Out Crime: The rise and fall of Hulme Crescents

Table of Contents:

• What is Designing Out Crime?
• Poor design = Crime. A case study:
• Design and crime: one shapes the other
• Starting out right
• The ten principles of crime prevention

How one disaster shaped our understanding of crime preventive design

What is Designing Out Crime?

Designing out crime refers to the process of planning and designing spaces that deter criminal behaviour. It involves creating environments that are functional, aesthetically pleasing and crucially, safe. By considering crime prevention during the design phase, rather than simply adding security measures at the end of a project, it becomes harder, riskier, or less attractive for offenders to commit crimes in the first place.

The principles of Secured by Design (SBD), an initiative backed by UK police, have become integral to this process. The SBD guidelines help planners, architects and developers to design buildings and public spaces which naturally reduce opportunities for crime and antisocial behaviour.

To truly appreciate the importance of designing out crime effectively, we first must consider the result when design does not consider crime reduction and antisocial behaviour management. For decades, housing developments in this country prioritised speed and cost over safety, leading to poorly planned estates that became hotspots for crime. The results of such oversight are not pretty.

Poor design = Crime. A case study:

Planning, Building & Construction Today (PBC) note that poor quality housing layout and design, most prevalent in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, can have a real and devastating impact upon the people that live within them. 

Many developments have been blighted by years of criminal behaviour that has been aided and supported by poor design. The Hulme area of Manchester, catastrophically redesigned in the 1960s, quickly became known as one of Britain’s greatest post-war planning disasters and is still known today as one of the most disastrous examples of what not to do… 

Crime was so rife here, largely due to incomprehensible design flaws and unbelievable oversights, that compared to the rest of the nation, you were thirty times more likely to be murdered or mugged in Hulme than anywhere else (Granada television Documentary: There’s No Place Like Hulme).  The Hulme Crescents project became a case study for all future social housing projects in Britain, providing a lesson in designing out crime, through its terrible downfall.

What went wrong? The design of the Hulme Crescents was almost doomed from the outset. Structurally, the huge u-shaped blocks were served with deck access, or “streets in the sky”, allowing the development to save money by reducing the need for lifts. The social impact of the concept of these decks had not been thoroughly researched, and the Crescents soon became a social disaster. The maze-like designs became hazardous, noisy wind tunnels and the thick, concrete walls isolated residents in their inward-facing flats. 

Police struggled to navigate the maze and patrols became limited to the lower levels of the development. Response times to crimes and injuries were diabolical, due to the design and sprawl of the area. Greater Manchester Police later ceased patrols of the estate altogether and it became regarded as the ‘Hulme Wild West’ for its lawless activity. 

The decks were a no-man’s land; full of unintended dark corners which facilitated drug dealing and various kinds of antisocial behaviour. Their hidden visibility from below, meant robberies could be carried out completely unnoticed and the walkways became perfect mugging territory; it was easy to corner people and assailants could easily escape by bicycle. Vandalism was rife and even milk and newspaper deliveries ceased. 

The design decisions which saw demolition of the neighbourly Victorian street layout of old Hulme, in favour of the huge open spaces at the Crescents, clearly segregated the population there from the rest of the city. Physical isolation very quickly saw the development completely cut off. Flyover highways such as the Mancunian Way and Princess Parkway Road effectively sealed residents into the area, away from social policing.

Just two years after opening, the development was declared unfit for families after tragically, a child died falling from one of the balconies. Crime and social issues continued to worsen while the building itself rapidly deteriorated. In the 1980s the council stopped charging rent; abandoning the social and design disaster that was the Crescents. The blocks were finally demolished in the 1990s and some enormous design lessons were learned. The subsequent redevelopment of the area had to be better and designing out crime would be at the forefront.

Design and crime: one shapes the other

The ‘Designing Out Crime’ guide explains how crime and design both evolve over time; one shaping the other. When Hulme was eventually redeveloped, the informed design choices were praised and even won design awards. In particular, the redesign of Hulme Park, completed in 2000 after the Crescents were demolished, was cited by the Design Council as an exemplary project in designing out crime. 

The Alliance Against Crime case studies report, notes that parks make a difference in a city centre, providing havens of peace and relaxation but unfortunately, they also frequently become sites of crime, antisocial behaviour and bullying. Getting it right, especially in Hulme, with its dreadful history of notoriously poor design, was crucial.

The £2.2 million project was to be visionary; the brief was to design a safe and attractive park in the city centre that could be used by a range of different groups. How? The report explains that the answer lay in the creation not of physical, but of psychological barriers.

Size

The park was never more than 70 metres wide at any point. Project Leader, Neil Swanson stated, “A park should not be too deep, as this makes people feel uneasy. We can pick out figures at a distance of 70 metres, recognising age, gender, even perhaps facial expression. You can recognise people and perhaps subconsciously, one is aware of not being anonymous.”

Surveillance

Surveillance played a central role in designing out crime, with new housing built facing the park to provide natural observation, increasing the feeling of being watched. Parking was encouraged around the perimeter to bring constant movement and passive surveillance while the road running through the park was retained with fencing designed to be visually open. An open-plan layout, with pathways linking the park to surrounding areas of the city encouraged continuous use, contributing to the sense of busyness and visibility. 

Other crime reducing techniques employed included using materials that were chosen for durability and ease of repair, with features such as angled railings, bollards and water channels used to deter unwanted behaviour without appearing hostile. Sure enough, in the period after completion, there was a 22.5% reduction in key crime compared to the previous year. Relatively free from crime for some years, the project was described as “a triumph of design”. You can read the full case study here.

However, it is noted that since the park was opened, new social issues such as gun crime and gang violence have developed. Now the park must contend with crime and antisocial behaviour in forms that were not a problem when it was designed. For example, the illegal riding of mini motorcycles is a new problem which designers have sought to combat by introducing gates which the mini motorbikes cannot get through, removing the means to partake in this behaviour. This just highlights that designing out crime requires continued focus; it is not something which can be simply, ‘ticked off’. 

Starting out right

The SBD approach being embedded from the very start of a project makes designing out crime more achievable and where this model is applied, crime reduction rates speak for themselves. 

The benefits of SBD are supported by independent academic research, consistently proving that SBD housing developments experience up to 87% less burglary, 25% less vehicle crime and 25% less criminal damage, with a significant impact on antisocial behaviour.

Michael Brooke, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Police Crime Prevention Initiatives, highlights the importance of getting it right from the start: “We need strategic partners in planning, departments and the private sector to work with us because far too often in the past we’ve had disastrous developments that people have been wanting to move out and away from. That’s not sustainable. The answer is to design out crime at the drawing board stage. And that’s the cheapest, most effective… It costs no more to design something well than to design it poorly.”

Across the UK, Designing Out Crime Officers (DOCO) are working closely with developers to advise on practical design elements to reduce crime. DOCO, Stephen Cranston in Hartlepool, advised on practical steps in a large urban regeneration, such as installing gated car parks, limiting the number of entry points and using plastic piping in place of copper to deter theft. During the consultation, he encouraged the developers to seek SBD accreditation, emphasising that the most effective time to address potential antisocial behaviour is during the planning phase. “Once a development has been completed,” he noted, “the main opportunity to design out crime has gone.”

The ten principles of crime prevention

For many social housing managers, the design stage opportunity may unfortunately have passed several decades ago, but that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done now to improve the situation and take proactive steps in reducing crime on their estates.

metroSTOR were recently joined by crime prevention expert, Mark O’Callaghan, for our recent webinar on Designing Out Crime with a particular focus on actionable takeaways for social housing managers. Drawing on over 30 years of experience in the Metropolitan Police Service, Mark shared the ten core principles for reducing crime:

The session offered valuable insights for professionals working across housing, planning and public services, highlighting practical strategies for designing safer environments and tackling the root causes of criminal behaviour. You can watch the full session here.

At metroSTOR, we understand that well-designed infrastructure plays a critical role in reducing crime and antisocial behaviour. Our approach incorporates the core principles of designing out crime by replacing hidden or insecure waste and recycling areas with clearly visible, accessible enclosures that actively deter misuse; particularly in high-density, social housing communities.

By removing the need for traditional internal bin stores and instead providing secure, external units that can be overlooked from surrounding properties, we eliminate many of the conditions that allow criminal or antisocial activity to take root. 

Visibility, accessibility and proper management are central to our design philosophy, ensuring that the spaces we help create remain safe, functional and welcoming for everyone who uses them.